British Prawns Getting High on Prozac in the Water
October 25th, 2010
Natural News
By: David Gutierrez
Contamination of British coastal waters with antidepressants is likely changing the behavior of prawns and other marine life, according to a study conducted by researchers from Portsmouth University.
In recent years, scientists have become increasingly aware that pharmaceutical products and byproducts are contaminating the world’s fresh- and saltwater. These come from products washed off human bodies and clothing, partially metabolized drugs given to humans and animals, and unmetabolized drugs discarded from hospitals and pharmaceutical plants.
“It’s no surprise that what we get from the pharmacy will be contaminating the waterways,” researcher Alex Ford said.
Water treatment plants are unable to prevent this kind of pollution.
“Drugs are partially broken down in the treatment process but what we are realizing now is that a lot more gets through than we thought,” Ford said. “The treatment plants weren’t designed to break down medicines so some inevitably get concentrated [and] released into streams or onto beaches. Effluent is concentrated in river estuaries and coastal areas, which is where shrimps and other marine life live – this means that shrimps are taking on the excreted drugs of whole towns.”
To test the possible effects of this pollution, Ford and colleagues exposed prawns to the same levels of Prozac found in British wastewater. They found that the animals, which normally prefer hiding in dark places, became five times more likely to swim up toward light after drug exposure — thereby placing them at increased risk of being eaten by predators.
“Crustaceans are crucial to the food chain,” Ford said. “If behavior is being changed this could seriously upset the balance of the ecosystem.”
The researchers believe that, as in humans, Prozac is likely affecting the levels of serotonin in the brains of aquatic animals. The effects of other drugs — such as hormones, cholesterol drugs and antibiotics — remains unknown, as does the effect of drugs in combination.
Click here for the full report from Natural News
Diabetes Drug Researcher Admits Drug Trials are Unethical and Dangerous
October 25th, 2010
Natural News
By: David Gutierrez
A drug researcher who presided over the trial that first raised concerns over the diabetes blockbuster Avandia has warned that further tests of the drug’s safety would be unethical.
In 2009, David Juurlink of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center in Toronto was the lead author of a study that compared rates of heart failure and death among older diabetics taking Avandia (known generically as rosiglitazone) and those taking Actos (pioglitazone), another drug in the same family. That study found that patients taking Avandia were 30 percent more likely to suffer heart failure or death.
Now Juurlink has joined with Sidney Wolfe, director of health research for Public Citizen, to call for the cancellation of another planned Avandia-Actos comparison study, known as the Thiazolidinedione Intervention in Vitamin D Evaluation (TIDE) trial.
The TIDE trial is to be performed by Avandia manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline at the behest of the FDA, which in 2007 ordered the company to conduct further safety studies of the drug. The FDA’s order came after it required the company to put a “black box” warning on the drug’s packaging about the risk of heart attack and heart failure.
The strong results of the 2009 study make any further comparison unethical, Juurlink and Wolfe have warned. The TIDE trial would expose “thousands of high-risk patients with diabetes to a drug with an unfavorable safety profile and clinical advantage over its comparator,” they wrote in an open letter to the FDA.
The TIDE study is due to be carried out in 14 different countries, including Third World countries such as Chile, India, Latvia, Mexico and Pakistan.
“[The] price of definitive proof” that Avandia is unsafe, “will almost certainly be measured in the lives of study subjects who have been incompletely informed about the risks and benefits of participation,” Wolfe and Juurlink wrote.
All drugs in the thiazolidinedione class, including Actos and Avandia, have also been linked to increased risk of anemia, edema, macular edema, bony fractures and acute liver injury.
Click here for the full report from Natural News
Inexpensive Dietary Supplement Helps to Prevent Birth Defects
October 25th, 2010
Natural News
By: Ethan Huff
Many medical professionals recommend that pregnant women take folic acid–also known as vitamin B9–as part of a prenatal supplement regimen designed to help ensure a healthy pregnancy. But new research out of the U.K. suggests that taking inositol along with folic acid will greatly decrease the chances that a baby will be born with spina bifida.
Inositol is a naturally-occurring nutrient found in many common foods like meat and vegetables. In tests conducted on mice, the substance exhibited a significant therapeutic effect that deterred the onset of neural tube defects.
“[F]rom our experimental work we know inositol can stimulate cells in the developing embryo to proliferate more quickly, and that corrects the defect that would develop in spina bifida,” explained Dr. Nick Greene from University College London, one of the study researchers.
The human clinical trial evaluating inositol’s effects on pregnancy is still underway, but preliminary results thus far are positive.
Anne Marie Hodkinson, one of the trial participants, has had good success with the supplement as she treks through her second pregnancy. Her first child was born with spina bifida despite her having taken folic acid for several years before that pregnancy. But taking inositol during her second pregnancy has helped prevent her second child from developing the disease.
The clinical trial is still underway and Dr. Greene is urging other women in the U.K. to participate. Together with folic acid, inositol appears to be a surefire way to avoid bearing children with birth defects. And if all continues to go well, the study could result in both supplements being recommended by authorities to all women of childbearing age.
Click here for the full report from Natural News
Seasonal Flu Death Estimates Overestimated
October 25th, 2010
Natural News
By: Jonathan Benson
Every year as flu season approaches, health authorities begin their chorus of warnings about the dangers of getting the flu. As part of their campaign to drum up support for the annual flu vaccine, it is common to hear about the 36,000 people who die every year from flu-related illness. But is this statistic even accurate? According to a recent announcement from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), no.
According to the CDC, there is no average number of people who die from the flu because the actual count varies significantly from year to year. Published in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the CDC announcement explains that the actual death count from flu-related illness has been as low as 3,300 in some years, which is far lower than the statistics used in media talking points.
The vast majority of flu-related deaths occur in people over the age of 65. Typically it is not even the flu that kills them, but other illnesses that result at some point after having the flu. But this fact has not stopped the CDC from now recommending that every person over the age of six months get a flu vaccine.
But do flu vaccines even work in the first place? According to two reviews recently published by the Cochrane Foundation, flu vaccinations are not effective at preventing the flu. In fact, they do virtually nothing to prevent the flu-related illnesses that are actually responsible for causing death primarily in the elderly.
According to Dr. Tom Jefferson from the Cochrane Vaccines Field, flu vaccines “show only modest or no effect against influenza and hospitalization from pneumonia.” He goes on to say in a podcast that “we have no reliable evidence on the effects of influenza vaccines on the elderly and health care workers who work with the elderly. What we do have evidence of is widespread manipulation of conclusions and spurious notoriety of the studies.”
So in summary, all the hoopla over flu deaths and the need for a flu vaccine are grounded in junk science and faulty statistics.
Click here for the full report from Natural News
Food Crisis Looms As Prices Skyrocket
October 25th, 2010
The Guardian
By: John Vidal
Rising food prices and shortages could cause instability in many countries as the cost of staple foods and vegetables reached their highest levels in two years, with scientists predicting further widespread droughts and floods.
Although food stocks are generally good despite much of this year’s harvests being wiped out in Pakistan and Russia, sugar and rice remain at a record price.
Global wheat and maize prices recently jumped nearly 30% in a few weeks while meat prices are at 20-year highs, according to the key Reuters-Jefferies commodity price indicator. Last week, the US predicted that global wheat harvests would be 30m tonnes lower than last year, a 5.5% fall. Meanwhile, the price of tomatoes in Egypt, garlic in China and bread in Pakistan are at near-record levels.
“The situation has deteriorated since September,” said Abdolreza Abbassian of the UN food and agriculture organisation. “In the last few weeks there have been signs we are heading the same way as in 2008.
“We may not get to the prices of 2008 but this time they could stay high much longer.”
However, opinions are sharply divided over whether these prices signal a world food crisis like the one in 2008 that helped cause riots in 25 countries, or simply reflect volatility in global commodity markets as countries claw their way through recession.
“A food crisis on the scale of two or three years ago is not imminent, but the underlying causes [of what happened then] are still there,” said Chris Leather, Oxfam’s food policy adviser.
“Prices are volatile and there is a lot of nervousness in the market. There are big differences between now and 2008. Harvests are generally better, global food stocks are better.”
But other analysts highlight the food riots in Mozambique that killed 12 people last month and claim that spiralling prices could promote further political turmoil.
They say this is particularly possible if the price of oil jumps, if there are further climatic shocks – suchas the floods in Pakistan or the heatwave in Russia – or if speculators buy deeper into global food markets.
“There is growing concern among countries about continuing volatility and uncertainty in food markets,” said Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank. “These concerns have been compounded by recent increases in grain prices.
“World food price volatility remains significant and in some countries, the volatility is adding to already higher local food prices.”
The bank last week said that food price volatility would last a further five years, and asked governments to contribute to a crisis fund after requests for more than $1bn (£635m) from developing countries were made.
“The food riots in Mozambique can be repeated anywhere in the coming years,” said Devinder Sharma, a leading Indian food analyst.
“Unless the world encourages developing countries to become self-sufficient in food grains, the threat of impending food riots will remain hanging over nations.
“The UN has expressed concern, but there is no effort to remove the imbalances in the food management system that is responsible for the crisis.”
Mounting anger has greeted food price inflation of 21% in Egypt in the last year, along with 17% rises in India and similar amounts in many other countries. Prices in the UK have risen 22% in three years.
The governments of Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Indonesia, Brazil and the Philippines have all warned of possible food shortages next year, citing floods and droughts in 2010, expected extreme weather next year, and speculation by traders who are buying up food stocks for release when prices rise.
Food prices worldwide are not yet at the same level as 2008, but the UN’s food price index rose 5% last month and now stands at its highest level in two years.
World wheat and maize prices have risen 57%, rice 45% and sugar 55% over the last six months and soybeans are at their highest price for 16 months.
UN special rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier de Schutter, says a combination of environmental degradation, urbanisation and large-scale land acquisitions by foreign investors for biofuels is squeezing land suitable for agriculture.
“Worldwide, 5m to 10m hectares of agricultural land are being lost annually due to severe degradation and another 19.5m are lost for industrial uses and urbanisation,” he says in a new report.
“But the pressure on land resulting from these factors has been boosted in recent years by policies favouring large-scale industrial plantations.
“According to the World Bank, more than one-third of large-scale land acquisitions are intended to produce agrofuels.”
But the World Development Movement (WDM) in London warned that food speculation by hedge funds, pension funds and investment banks was likely to prompt further inflation.
According to the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, speculators on the trading floor of the Chicago Exchange bought futures contracts for about 40m tonnes of maize and 6m tonnes of wheat in the summer.
Longtime hedge fund manager Mike Masters, who has worked with WDM, said: “Because there is already much more capital available in the world than hard commodities, speculators can increase the price of consumable commodities, like foodstuffs or energy, much higher than traditional consumers and producers can react.
“When derivative markets are linked to commodity markets, this nearly unlimited capital from the financial sector can cause excessive price volatility.”
US government reports of much cooler-than-normal water temperatures in the Pacific, which traditionally lead to extreme weather around the world, last week added to food price uncertainties.
Click here for the full report from the Guardian
Fraud Suspicion At Ballot Box
October 25th, 2010
Fox 5 Vegas
Some voters in Boulder City complained on Monday that their ballot had been cast before they went to the polls, raising questions about Clark County’s electronic voting machines.
Voter Joyce Ferrara said when they went to vote for Republican Sharron Angle, her Democratic opponent, Sen. Harry Reid’s name was already checked.
Ferrara said she wasn’t alone in her voting experience. She said her husband and several others voting at the same time all had the same thing happen.
“Something’s not right,” Ferrara said. “One person that’s a fluke. Two, that’s strange. But several within a five minute period of time — that’s wrong.”
Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said there is no voter fraud, although the issues do come up because the touch-screens are sensitive. For that reason, a person may not want to have their fingers linger too long on the screen after they make a selection at any time.
“Especially in a community with elderly citizens (they have) difficulty in (casting their) ballot,” Lomax said. “Team leaders said there were complaints (and the) race filled in.”
At any time, voters can go back on the screen and review their selections. They are also allowed to make changes and encouraged to double-check their ballot on screen and on paper before it is cast.
Lomax said voters need to have faith in the system.
“This election, I think, more than ever,” he said. “The two sides are very fractured and each side is suspicious and we’re caught in the middle.”
Click here for the full report from Fox 5 Vegas
Moo-ve Over Sleeping Pills
October 26th, 2010
ABC News
By: Mary Plummer
German cows are working nights to help insomniacs.
A herd of 1,400 cows is being milked between the hours of 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. under the theory that they will produce more sleep inducing melatonin in their milk at a time when they are usually lying down in the dark.
To further boost the melatonin production, the bovines are fed clover and soothed under warm red lights to lower stress levels while being milked. And during the day when the weather is good, the pampered animals are turned out in a pen with grass and deep, cozy sand, which the workers call “cow beach.”
By giving the cows special treatment, the Milchkristalle company says it’s getting special milk with 10 times more of the sleep-regulating hormone melatonin than normal milk.
The milk is freeze-dried and turned into a product known as Nightmilk Crystals, which can be mixed with regular milk or with yogurt and consumed before going to bed.
“It tastes like milk, maybe a little bit stronger,” said Maike Schnittger, a Hamburg resident who uses Nightmilk Crystals.
Schnittger was out of work for awhile and at night worries would flood her mind, keeping her up for hours. But she says taking Nightmilk Crystals was a huge help, conking her out in just 30 minutes. “It was a deep sleep and the next morning I felt really awake,” she said, adding that she likes that the product is natural. “I didn’t ever take medicine for sleeping and I don’t want to.”
Nightmilk Crystals’ inventor Tony Gnann grew up on a farm. After spending a lifetime with cows, he became fascinated with melatonin after reading an Irish study on the subject a decade ago. After six years of research, the Munich-based company says its studies show that giving cows different care and milking them during the middle of the night changes the level of nocturnal melatonin in their blood and the milk they produce.
Milchkristalle began selling the Nightmilk Crystals in German pharmacies and through its website, www.nacht-milchkristalle.de in March. Recently, the company’s had orders from India, Austria and the U.S.
Melatonin, which is widely available without a prescription in the U.S., is under much stricter restrictions in Europe where it’s only available at pharmacies. The hormone is naturally produced by the body and used by the brain to regulate the sleep-wake cycle. Doctors often recommend supplements of melatonin for people who have jet lag or work odd shifts.
“Melatonin won’t make you sleepy, but will help you fall asleep if your body clock is out of sync,” said David Schulman, a doctor at the Emory University sleep laboratory in Atlanta.
Cows Working During the Night for Insomniacs
Consumer watchdog groups have questioned the company’s science, saying a person would have to drink an impossible amount of the milk product to see results.
Schulman also had concerns about dose size. The average recommended dose of melatonin is three milligrams, far more than a person would get from the 1,800 picogram dose of the Nightmilk Crystal supplement.
“I’d be surprised if this small a dose did anything at all,” Schulman said, adding he didn’t see the point of coaxing cows to produce the hormone, which is safely and cheaply produced in factories.
But Nightmilk Crystals user Schnittger was convinced it works, and has other concerns. Although she was relieved to be sleeping sounder, she couldn’t help thinking about the cows busy working nights so she could rest.
“Maybe they want to sleep, like the human being,” she said. “It’s good for the people, yes, but if it’s good for the cows I don’t know.”
Click here for the full report from ABC News
Optimism in Government Lowest Since Watergate
October 26, 2010 by Andrew
Filed under Government
October 26th, 2010
ABC News
By: Gary Langer
Optimism in the country’s system of government has dropped to a new low when measured against polls going back 36 years, and the public’s belief that America is the greatest nation on earth, while still high, has fallen significantly from its level a generation ago.
These results from the latest ABC News/Yahoo News poll, coming before next week’s midterm elections, suggest that public disenchantment extends beyond its economic and political roots to broader questions about the country’s governance and American exceptionalism.
The bottom hasn’t fallen out of national pride: Seventy-five percent call the United States “the greatest country in the world.” But that’s down from 88 percent when the same question was asked in 1984. And nearly a quarter, 23 percent, now take the alternative view, saying America used to be the greatest country “but isn’t anymore.” That’s up from 9 percent.
Optimism about the system has taken an even bigger hit in this poll, produced for ABC and Yahoo News by Langer Research Associates. Back in 1974 – shortly after Richard Nixon’s resignation in the Watergate scandal – 55 percent of Americans were optimistic about “our system of government and how well it works.” Today, 33 percent say that, the lowest number in nearly a dozen measurements taken across the decades. (None, though, were taken in the early 1990s, the last time economic disgruntlement was as high as it is now.)
BETTER NEWS — There’s better news on two fronts. First, while optimism is down, pessimism about the workings of government hasn’t risen; 20 percent are pessimistic, about the average over 36 years of polls, and the number peaked much higher, at 28 percent, in 1996. Instead, the number saying they’re “uncertain” about the U.S. system of government and how it’s working — 46 percent — has reached a new high.
The question, which originated with the Roper Organization, admittedly is double-barreled: Is it the system that’s the problem, or how it’s working? More of the latter, apparently. In a new follow-up, this poll asked pessimistic or uncertain Americans what the problem was — the system itself, or the people running the government. Answer: the people running the government, not the system itself, by a 3-1 margin, 74 percent to 24 percent.
Netted, this means that slightly less than half of Americans, 49 percent, are pessimistic or uncertain about the system and how it’s working, and mainly blame the people running government for the problems. Sixteen percent are pessimistic or uncertain, and blame the system itself. And nearly all of the rest, 33 percent, are optimistic about the system.
While a plurality perceives a problem with the people running the government, there’s also room for improvement in the public’s own awareness of political candidates. Thirty-five percent of Americans concede that they don’t know enough about their own selection of candidates to say how many of them, if any, “share your view of what needs to be done to improve things in this country.” Nineteen percent say there are a lot or a good amount of such candidates; the plurality, 46 percent, says there are few or none.
GROUPS — Age is a significant factor in views of the country’s greatness. Eighty-three percent of adults 50 and up call the United States the greatest country in the world; that drops to 68 percent of those under 50. (It’s 74 percent among people in their 40s, 69 percent among those in their 30s and 61 percent among 18- to 29-year-olds. These differences by decade, though, don’t reach statistical significance, given the sample sizes.)
Under-30s, moreover, are more apt than their elders to be pessimistic about the system and how well it works, 28 percent compared with 18 percent.
Click here for the full report from ABC News
Top U.S. Incomes Grew to a $519 Million Average
October 26th, 2010
Daily Finance
By: Sam Gustin
During the depths of the recession in 2009, as millions of Americans lost their jobs, homes and life savings, the highest-paid earners in the United States saw their average incomes increase more than five-fold from 2008, according to new data from the federal government.
The 74 people who earned more than $50 million last year — the highest income category measured by the Social Security Administration — saw their average incomes skyrocket from $91.8 million in 2008 to a mind-boggling $518.8 million in 2009.
These 74 people earned an average of $10 million — per week. Meanwhile, half of all American wage-earners, or about 75 million people, earned less than $505 per week.
$10 Million Per Week Vs. $505 Per Week
Even though the absolute number of earners in the over-$50 million income category decreased from 131 to 74 in 2009, the combined wages of that group increased by an astonishing $26.5 billion, from $11.9 billion in 2008 to $38.4 billion in 2009.
These 74 people earned a combined $38.4 billion last year, or as much as the 19 million lowest-paid American workers, combined. In 2009, the average income earned by all Americans fell by $384 to $39,269 and the median income fell by $253 to $26,261.
These figures were revealed by the Social Security Administration on October 15th, and were first reported by David Cay Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize-winning former reporter for The New York Times, who now writes for Tax.com, the website of Tax Analysts, a nonprofit tax analysis group based in Falls Church, Virginia.
The names of the top 74 earners were not disclosed, but they were “most likely Wall Street traders who earned bonuses or corporate executives cashing in deferred compensation that accumulated over the years, or even highly paid athletes,” Bloomberg said, citing Johnston.
In an email, Johnston told DailyFinance that the top 74 earners also does not include most hedge fund managers because much of their “investment” income is not counted as wages.
An “Orgy of Money Exhibitionism”
“This systematic destruction of the working class and middle class has come during an era notable for celebrating the super-rich just for being super-rich,” Johnston wrote. “From the Forbes 400 launch in 1982 and Robin Leach’s Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous in 1984 to the faux reality of the multiplying Real Housewives shows, money voyeurism has grown in tandem with stagnant to falling incomes for the vast majority. There has also been huge income growth at the top and the economic children of income inequality: budget deficits and malign neglect of our commonwealth.”
“This orgy of money exhibitionism has created a society in which commas – it takes three to be a billionaire – count more than character,” Johnston continued. “We have gone so far down this path that we bailed out bankers, allowing them to keep the untaxed wealth in their deferral accounts and, with a few exceptions, retaining shareholder value, while wiping out investors in General Motors and Chrysler as a condition of their bailouts. And while autoworkers had to take severe pay cuts, bonus time on Wall Street is at new record levels.”
Click here for the full report from Daily Finance
Poisons YOU need to know about
October 26, 2010 by KT
Filed under Kevin's Blog
Every day you are exposed to poisons, even in your vitamin and supplements. That is why I created my own supplement line. This will allow you to get the nutrition you need on a daily basis without the fear of getting poisoned.
Three specific poisons that not many people are aware of and I want you to be educated about are:
MAGNESIUM STEARATE:
WARNING! May form combustible dust concentration in air.
Definition: Tasteless, odorless white powder; soluble in hot alcohol, insoluble in water; melts at 89°C; used in paints and medicine, and as a plastics stabilizer and lubricant. Also known as dolomol.
Chronic Effects on Humans: May cause damage to the following organs: liver, skin.
STEARIC ACID:
CAUTION! May cause irritation to skin, eyes, and respiratory tract. May form combustible dust concentrations in air.
Definition: A colorless, odorless, waxlike fatty acid, CH3(CH2)16COOH, occurring in natural animal and vegetable fats. Derived from fat from cows and sheep and from dogs and cats euthanized in animal shelters. Most often refers to a fatty substance taken from the stomachs of pigs. Can be harsh, irritating. Used in cosmetics, soaps, lubricants, candles, hairspray, conditioners, deodorants, creams, chewing gum, food flavoring.
Chronic Effects on Humans: May cause cancer based on animal test data
Other Toxic Effects on Humans: May cause skin irritation. Eyes: May cause eye irritation. Inhalation: May cause respiratory tract irritation. Symptoms may include coughing, sore throat, labored breathing, and chest pain. Ingestion: Ingestion of large oral doses may cause irritation to the gastrointestinal tract. Ingestion may also cause intestinal obstruction.
Definition: A mineral produced by the mining of talc rocks and then processed by crushing, drying and milling. Processing eliminates a number of trace minerals from the talc, but does not separate minute fibers, which are very similar to asbestos.
The FDA allows companies to put these poisons in your products. Stop purchasing products containing these poisons and cleanse your body of the toxins you’ve already put in.
Yours in health,
KT
